Khurais Oilfield, Saudi Arabia: State oil giant Saudi Aramco is confident that the biggest new field in its plan to raise oil capacity will arrive bang on schedule in June next year.
Senior executives told reporters visiting the Khurais project south of Riyadh on Monday that the 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) expansion would avoid delays that have plagued the global energy sector.
They were speaking a day after Saudi oil minister Ali Al Naimi assured an emergency meeting of consumers and producers the kingdom would pump enough oil to meet demand and pledged to add to existing plans to increase output potential.
"We are 100 per cent confident that Khurais will come on stream as planned in June 2009," said Ameen Al Nasser, one of Aramco's top executives.
He had been asked how he could be so certain the $10 billion project would be on time given that another major boost to capacity from the Khursaniyah oilfield has yet to start up after missing a December deadline.
Aramco officials had shown similar confidence about that plan last year. Nasser said on Monday that Khursaniyah would be ready to start in August.
"Even with a slight delay, it took 41 months from start to finish compared to the world average of 53 months, still Khursaniyah is doing very well," he said.
The oil the Saudi fields contain is highly prized Arab Light oil, which is easily converted into transport fuel. "It is a very welcome addition at a time when there are precious few supplies able to add this kind of increment to the market," said David Fyfe of the International Energy Agency.
